


Left to Lose

by escritoireazul



Category: The Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Drinking, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: Max died. It changed nothing.
Relationships: Michael Emerson/Sam Emerson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	Left to Lose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearthouses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearthouses/gifts).



Max died.

It changed nothing.

“He’s not the head vampire,” Edgar told them, sneering. Perpetually sneering.

“He has to be.” Star stood tall, sounded firm, but her hands clutched at Laddie’s shoulders and tears fell down her cheeks. She did not seem to realize it. “There’s no one else.”

“It could be anyone else.” Alan’s voice was flat. “There could be vampires everywhere. Anywhere.”

“Oh, my boys.” Lucy gathered Sam close, then Michael, then Grandpa. Reached for Laddie after, who went willing into the hug. Star shied away.

Max died. Star’s hollow eyes, Michael’s ridged face and sharp fangs, Laddie’s fear -- it changed nothing.

*  
The house was torn open, filled with blood and viscera, stank of vampires and burned hair and death. Where else could they go? Finally, Lucy squared her shoulders. Twisted her fingers together, but kept her voice steady.

“We’ll go to Max’s,” she said. “We can’t stay here.”

The Frogs refused. Went home, taking their distrust and glares with them. Grandpa refused. Went to see one of his friends. She wouldn’t ask questions, he promised. They had no choice but to believe him. He’d known all along, and he hadn’t said anything, and he hadn’t asked questions.

It was better that he left. The Frog brothers too.

Sam braced himself, but Max’s yard was empty. No Thorn. No other hellhound. Nothing but a tattered kite, caught against the fence, black wings fluttering.

Inside, no one wanted Max’s room. Lucy found blankets for them all. Why did he have extra bedding? Why did he have bedding at all? Sam couldn’t focus. Couldn’t think.

They slept in the living room. Lucy on the couch. Star made a nest of blankets for her and Laddie. Sam and Michael stretched out behind the couch. Lucy turned up the heat. They laid down. No one turned off a light. No one slept, not until sunrise.

Sam woke late that afternoon curled around Michael, head pressed against shoulder, face buried. Sweat ran down his back, dampened his hair. The heat still ran. The sun shone. He could hear everyone breathing.

Michael’s eyes were closed when he looked. His chest rose and fell, steady. His heart beat.

Monster, with every pulse. Killer. Beast.

*

They stumbled around each other, all of them, for weeks. Grandpa brought supplies. Michael and Sam helped him rebuild the walls Star and Laddie, too, but they weren’t much use when the sun was at its hottest. Michael staggered, slowed, but didn’t always fall asleep. Star and Laddie did.

Michael whispered to him, early one morning, when everyone pretended to sleep -- or maybe managed it, even at night, with all the lights burning -- that the thirst burned. His mouth hurt. Even his teeth. His throat. His stomach. All he could think about was blood.

Star and Laddie had fought it for so much longer.

Michael’s breath hit Sam’s face when they talked like that, stretched out near each other, talking in quiet gasps. It stank sometimes. Onions. Garlic. Old coffee. Vampire, though he couldn’t tell what part was that, not really.

His own pulse sounded loud in his ears. Sometimes, Michael stared at him, and Sam thought he watched the flutter of a heartbeat at his throat.

*

Eventually, they moved back home. Lucy kept working at the video store. Star and Laddie took Michael’s room. Michael joined Sam. Grandpa did whatever Grandpa did when he wasn’t fixing the house. Nanook slept at the foot of Sam’s bed. Michael slept on the floor, mostly. Sometimes, though, he’d climb in with Sam. They’d talk there, lights burning, house quiet around them.

School started. Sam slept better at night, mostly. Star and Laddie stayed, but Star spent her time talking to Lucy. Talking to Laddie. Talking to Grandpa, even, though Sam didn’t know what they could possibly talk about, or how she got him to say anything in the first place. 

All the damn vampires, he guessed. Maybe.

Michael talked to Sam. Hugged Lucy, nodded at Star, watched Grandpa with wary eyes. Saved all his important words, thoughts, fears, saved them all for Sam.

*

“It hurts,” Michael whimpered. It was summer again. The sun burned long, and not even the fog at sunrise and sunset helped. His eyes were bloodshot. His lips chapped because he kept biting at them until they bled, and then he licked it away.

“I know.” Sam brought him water. Smoothed his hair out of his face. It was too long, now, and Lucy fussed, but Michael wouldn’t cut it. 

He’d cast other things aside. He never took out his bike. Stopped wearing his leather jacket. Removed that earring.

Star worked, now. At the movie rental part time. At a hair salon part time, sweeping and scheduling. She looked hungry, sometimes, thirsty, her eyes bright, but the bruises under her eyes faded. She made friends, Sam thought, and she wasn’t always home. She trusted Lucy with Laddie. Trusted Laddie with them all.

Michael grew quiet. His eyes were so tired they looked constantly bruised.

He was dying one slow breath at a time.

Max died, but it changed nothing.

Michael couldn’t die too.

*

Winter came, less sun, more fog, storms off the coast. The air was cold, and Sam burrowed under the covers because Michael liked to sit in the open window. He wouldn’t hurt himself if he fell, but the air was sharp enough it hurt Sam’s lungs sometimes.

Finally, Sam gathered his courage. Cast the blankets aside and sat with his bare feet on the cold floor.

“You’re dying,” he told Michael.

Michael looked at him and then away again, fast. His eyes were bright like this, in the dark, with the moon and stars covered by clouds. The brightest part of the darkness.

“You’re dying,” Sam said again. “You can’t. I won’t let you.”

“Star’s alive.” Michael’s voice was rough, like he hadn’t spoken in a long time. It was like that now, no matter how often he spoke. He spoke often to Sam. Less to the others.

“Star’s drinking blood,” Sam snapped. Michael looked at him then, for real, longer than a scared glance. “You know it as well as I do.” He did, too. Star had told him that she’d made the offer to Michael, the same she had Laddie. Told him that Michael turned it down. 

Michael bit at his lips again. Drew blood. Licked it. Looked away when he remembered Sam watched him. “I’m not a killer.”

Sam scoffed. “Like she is. Like Laddie is. No one’s killing anyone.”

Michael’s jaw tensed, set in that stubborn way of his.

“You’re going to drink blood, and you’re going to survive, and you’re going to do this even if I have to shove it down your throat.”

Michael slanted a look at him. “No you won’t. You can’t.”

“Mmm.” Sam drew himself up. Breathed in deep and out slow.

Then, very carefully, he drew the knife along his wrist.

Michael’s head snapped toward him. His face had shifted, ridges and fangs and terror. There wasn’t much blood. He hadn’t cut deep, had, in honesty, barely cut it at all, but there was blood and there was a little pain, and he stared at his brother over it. Demanding.

Michael shuddered. “Sam.” His voice was weak. “Sam, leave.” He leaned out the window himself, his hands tight on the sill, but he didn’t make himself go. Couldn’t, maybe.

Sam stood and went to him, holding out his arm. “I trust you,” he said, and watched how Michael shuddered from it. “I trust you.”

He stood too close. Michael leaned back, still at the window, and stared up at him with wild eyes.

“Michael,” Sam said, and his voice broke on the, “please.”

Michael grabbed him then, dragged him tight between his legs, and pressed his mouth to Sam’s wrist. It hurt, more than the cut, but there was more to it than that. The dragging pull as he sucked, the sharp points of his fangs, the tight hold he had on Sam’s arm above it and his hand below, it was terrible and wonderful.

Michael drank deep, and Sam was suddenly, embarrassingly hard. He was pressed too close to Michael for either of them to miss it. He tried to ease away, at least angle his hips back, but Michael snapped an arm around his thighs and held him tighter still. Each pull of blood felt like a hot, dangerous stroke.

Michael’s eyes were closed as he drank. Sam swallowed back a moan, and a shout, and an apology, but he couldn’t stop the breathy, “Michael.”

Michael opened his eyes, and Sam came so hard he fell into Michael and nearly sent them both out the window.

*

They didn’t talk about it, after, not for a long time. Once a month, Sam went to his brother, knife in hand. The next few times, he still had to make the first cut. Finally, Michael caught the knife, set it aside, and bit, gentle as he could be. 

Every time, he drank enough to take the edge off, to save his life, but never too much. Every time, the moment Michael pushed teeth into his skin, Sam was hard. Every time, as he drank, Michael looked up at him eventually, shining eyes, and Sam came, breathless and warm and afraid.

*

They didn’t talk about it, not for months. Even when Michael had his room again, Star and Laddie moving in with friends -- with people who fed them, Sam thought, but didn’t confirm until later -- he came to Sam’s room half the nights anyway, to sleep, and every time he needed to drink.

Then, one time, Michael pressed his palm against Sam, where he was hard and aching, and took a deeper drink, and held him, broad hand firm and steady, as he came.

*

They didn’t talk about it, not for more than a year, and by then Michael stroked him through it, through his pants, under his pants. He was naked, eventually, standing before Michael, who was clothed, and who didn’t mind when Sam came all over him messily.

It took awhile for Sam to realize Michael was hard after. He never did anything about it. Didn’t touch himself, not then, and didn’t take himself away to do it in private, either, at least not right away. He would dress Sam, if necessary, and tuck him into bed, and lie with him there, always touching him, one hand in his hair, maybe, one on his hip.

*

They didn’t talk about it, not really, ever. They talked around it, and then they talked with a kiss, and then they talked with more kisses, and then they talked about it with mouths and teeth and tongues everywhere else.

*

They didn’t talk about it, not really, not ever, but Michael said love first, into his wrist, into his blood, and Sam whispered it back while they lie together, after.

*

Max died. It changed nothing. It changed everything.


End file.
